


Georgian Winter

by karakael



Category: One Piece
Genre: Cold War, Disabled Character, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-31 18:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6481516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karakael/pseuds/karakael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico Robin is a spy of the worst sort: one that informs on her own people. Its a job she hates and is wearing her down, year by year, following the orders of a party which stole everything from her.</p>
<p>But when she is sent to Enies Lobby suddenly things turn strange as every bit of her past rears up at once, both good and bad. And its all heralded by an idiot American dismantler...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> About two years ago, on tumblr, there was a Cold War AU idea that went around. I took it all in a bit different direction, but it should be fun anyways!
> 
> Obviously, if I got any of the names, dates or data wrong please ping me! Cold War history is far from my area of expertise, but is fascinating stuff.

The Soviet Union is cold in winter.

Georgia less so, but the wind from the mountains is still bitter, and bit through Nico Robin’s shoes as if they weren’t there, the heavy fabric no defense for feet once frostbitten and toes now forever numb. 

She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders. It is a huge, warm thing, a bit above the budget of the struggling anthropologist her cover demands. But it is a memento from her time in Siberia, and she was damned if she was going to leave it behind.

Not that the coat provides much protection from the worst of the cold, that bitter bite that worms its way in not from the wind, but the guilt of what she was doing.

Nico Robin, lead anthropologist for the USSR, should not have doubts about her motherland. Nico Robin, daughter of the disgraced Nico Olivia, should not even think about disobeying her handlers, lest she face her mother’s fate.

But that didn’t mean she was immune from the regret and guilt. Oh, being an informant was easy enough when it is the rich and powerful she was assigned to. So many of the oligarchs felt themselves about the law, believing that their contributions to the Party would protect them from punishment for their corruption. Watching them fall was one of the best parts of her job. There was a light in their eyes, when they realized they had been betrayed by the one person who seemed too unimportant to lie to, or too indebted to think of betrayal, that gave her a grim satisfaction. Her clients had learned their lessons well, as even the most innocuous scholar was equal to the greatest crime lord, according to the Communist doctrine.

So the man called Crocodile had fallen, and dozens before him, and she had no regrets on that score. But it was the ones with no list of crimes and cruelties that made her feel the cold of winter guilt. The leaders stripped of their power for daring to set aside more than required for their workers. The spokespeople too silly to realize when they accidentally spoke out against the Party. The doctor jailed for using contraband antibiotics. The farmers or factory workers who struggled against idiotic leadership and inefficient design, only to find themselves shipped off to Siberia for speaking their minds.

And perhaps worse of all were the people harmed by her scholarly work. Ruthlessly analyzed and observe, her papers were more often than not used as justification to strip the identities away from her subjects. How many unique cultures and stories had been lost in favor of conformity? It chilled her to the bone to think that it was her work that harmed so many. 

But this time was different. There was an ugly current in the offices when she had returned from Siberia. Furtive looks, glares between different factions at the [KGB] branch office where she worked. When she had received her posting from Ao Kiji he had glared down at her with ice in his eyes and said “be careful”, the one hint that her handler cared at all.

And now she was here, wandering the streets of Tbilisi, wondering what he expected of her. Yes, there was resentment in Georgia. There was resentment everywhere. But here, in Stalin’s very country, there were few people stupid enough to hold anything but the Party line. No one would open up to an outsider, even one so harmless as a visiting scholar. 

So she pulled her hood up and made her way away from the tall buildings and grim factories of the city center into the ramshackle slums of towering tenement buildings interspersed with bars and commissaries. Light poured into the street from wavy glass windows and the murmur of voices picked up the further away from the main streets she got. There was little laughter and most of it was muted. Food was scarce, here in the depths of the Georgian winter, and most stayed in their homes hoarding what they had. But people survived, and each step she took brought her further away from the ever-watchful eye of the Party, and further into the limited freedom of the weekend revelry.

Somewhere in this muddled city was the small room she had been given as part of her cover, but frankly she had no interest in unloading her books and belongings in another soulless hole, finding further coded instructions beneath her pillow and discovering which poor sod she would expose next.

“And then you say _Viva La Revolution_!”

Robin froze, half way down a grungy alley, words of French flickering out from another back-street bar. Here, in the midst of Soviet power, someone dared to speak as one of the enemy?

“No? Well, all Comrades should know this one. _Die Capitalist Scum!_ “ 

She felt the world shake beneath her feet. English. Who would openly speak English in Georgia? Did the fool not know that such a sin would bring the spies and snitches crawling from the woodwork, ready at any moment to report for nothing more than a crust of bread or a slightly larger consignment of coal? Even here, so far from the heart of their great nation, an idiocy as great as English could not be ignored. 

And as such, it was her duty to observe it. And perhaps if the man was amusing she would let him go, if just for the relief of keeping her from her lonely room for a few more hours. 

Tightening her hand on her bag, she pushed open the grimy door of the pub, snow and cold following her in.

“Then you have to say this _All Hail Mother Russia_!”

There was laughter, _real_ laughter, and intoned repetition of the English phrase from half the bar. Most spoke the words with such heavy accent that only a scholar, such as herself, would even recognize it for what it was - some reflection of not just English, but _American_ English.

Certainly the bar patrons had no idea. They could barely differentiate from the French, English, and the half-Russian, half Georgian slur that their teacher gave. But they chimed along, none the less, seeming oblivious to the danger they put themselves in.

She scanned the room, looking for the loud-mouthed culprit, and she slowly realized that her case was weaker than she had feared. True, an idiot was speaking English in public, but it was almost safe English. She even heard snatches of their national anthem, butchered beyond recognizability by the admittedly drunk patrons, but none-the-less an English rendition of _Gosudarstvenny Gimn SSSR_.

Robin herself was beneath notice, only gaining a wolf-whistle as she slipped inside the door, enjoying the blast of warm air. Then a man shoved his way past her, forcing her into the light and towards the bar. Surrounding her everywhere were rough-hewn faces well on their way to intoxication. Fewer farmers than she had expected, but many who looked like laborers in the factories. An equal number of women and men, all gathered around short tables or sitting at the bar letting out the day’s stress. And while in Moscow her entrance and eccentric garb would have left the whole room staring ice into her, here she wasn’t even noticed.

“What do y’all want next? Can’t say I know much of the pretty languages, but I could probably figure out some Mandarin. Or do you want to give the bastards some lip in their own tongue? How ‘bout _Damn Capitalists!_? That one’s easy!”

There were general nods and laughter that allowed her to hone in on the speaker, a man with a huge voice that boomed from the back of the bar. The English phrase was repeated again and again, with more expletives added each time, until the whole pub erupted into laughter at the mangled phrases even the most degenerate Georgian could recognize to be butchered English. 

Finally she found the speaker. He wasn’t hard to spot, with his sandy blond hair so white it almost appeared blue under the flickering lights. He had a broad back and heavily muscled arms covered in grease and burn marks. A welder, perhaps. He would have to be a welder required to carry the iron beams he had to secure, if he had shoulders that wide.

Cautiously she approached the table, wincing at the raucous laughter and the yells. Duty kept her moving forward, rather than hanging at the back and simply observing.Her handler would have words with her if she failed to spot such an obvious anomaly. And those words generally resulted in more frostbite and and a stark reminder of what happened to the last Nico who defied the Party. Even worse, this man could be a plant, sent to test her to see if she reacted as a true informant would, and the thought of what would happen to her if she failed propelled her forward against her own wishes.

“Excuse me.” She had to repeat herself three times before the table quieted itself enough to notice her. That itself was unusual; normally people took notice of a tall woman, no matter how politely she stood. 

“Might I ask who is speaking in such poor English?”

Immediately the bar turned wary. She went from anomaly to outsider in the space of a second, an unknown with a full Russian accent. But no one would hurt her, she knew that for sure. No one would risk the ire the Party would reign down upon those who would dare defy or desecrate one of their own. Just as she feared the big man before her, they feared her for the same reason. She might be exactly as she looked, a poor worker in some strange office, or she might be a spy, and the people here knew all too well what happened to those who dared question the latter. 

Just once, Nico Robin wished that she could go somewhere where distrust wasn’t the logical reaction to life. The circles and circles of distrust wore her down, made her desperate for friendship she knew she never deserved, and brought the freezing cold into even this warm respite.

But the big blond man apparently took no notice of the looks, and simply turned and stared right at her.

Robin stared back.

Chiseled chin, blue eyes, up-swept hair; all innocuous on their own. But taken together, and added to an unrecognizable expression on his face, and the man screamed foreigner. 

But no foreigner would be so stupid as to do what he did next.

“Alright, comrades, I think its time to learn a new word. One that describes this lovely lady perfectly. Repeat after me… _SUUUUPER!_ "


	2. Chapter 2

Nico Robin stumbled back, sputtering, at the - the - the _moron_ that was in front of her. Of all the rude, crude _Capitalist_ things to say…

“Ah, and now we know she knows English too. What I said was that she was pretty. Don’t you think that, guys? Lady like this shouldn’t be in a pub like ours.” The man had turned back to the table, receiving nods of agreement. Somehow he had diffused the situation, embarrassing her to the extent that now none of them looked at her like a threat. She was even getting sympathetic looks from two of the girls at the bar, as if this was something the foreigner did on a regular basis.

“I should think I deserve the name of the man who…” her eyes narrowed “cat-called me.” 

The brute turned back. “Me? Oh, I’m Franky, miss. Everyone round here knows Franky!” 

More nods and she filed the name away under ‘dangerous suspects’. 

Then she realized he was staring at her, taking his time as he waited for her response to regard her more fully. She was used to having men look at her like that, but masked behind the stupid look on his face was another expression she couldn’t place. Damn the man.

“I am Nico Robin.”

His eyes widened slightly, and another one of those odd looks crossed his face, followed by a bit of triumph. “Robin, huh? I think I’ve heard of you. Sounds like a _super_ name for a _suuuper_ lady.”

The English littering his sentences made her wince. It was almost enough to make her miss the other bits of information he’d dropped, but she wasn’t an untrained rookie and she somehow doubted he knew her from her published work. So. The man knew her name from where, exactly?

She mimed a shrug and forced a friendly smile. “I would love to know where you’ve heard of me. Perhaps we could find somewhere more quiet to talk? If you’ll stand and follow me?” All politeness, yet still her words should have sent shivers of fear into the minds of the bar patrons. A request like that was not something one would dare disobey.

Yet…

Yet the big man, Franky, laughed and the rest of the bar laughed with him, sharing some kind of private joke.

“Invited out by a pretty girl like you? I wish I could say yes to everything~”

Eyes narrowed, but she did her best to seem nothing but unhappy. “Why? Surely I have not offended - “

“Naw, little Lady, it ain’t nothing like that.” With a grin he deftly rolled back from the table, his chair gliding on wheels with tire-treads that Robin had somehow failed to notice in the smoke-filled room.

“Its just that I can’t stand.”

\-----------------------------------------

Franky navigated easily around the bar, rolling on well-greased wheels, Robin following. She was trying not to be shocked. After all, accidents were common in factories. Limbs were lost, legs were crushed, backs broken…

But no victim she had ever met was anything like Franky.

Victim wasn’t really a word to describe him, for one. Even in the crowded bar he moved easily, ducking under elbows and wheeling around chair legs, even pushing slightly if someone couldn’t see him. People laughed and chatted with him, completely ignoring his disability. Yes, everyone had to look down to talk to him, unless they were also sitting, but his personality seemed to overwhelm any thought of his state. 

For his personality filled up the room. Loud and boisterous, everyone seemed to know him or know of him. Even despite his foreigner looks and foreign airs. After that, being chair-bound seemed of secondary importance. They ignored the English, why not everything else?

As for his chair...she had never seen anything like it. Thick cushion, huge wheels, hydraulics to raise him up to the level of the bar, and some kind of motor on the back. Not standard Soviet design at all. It was streamlined for inside the bar, but she could only imagine what such a man would do if he had access to more materials. There were already thick treads on the two-part wheels, full sized it would almost look like -

“I call it my Franky-Tank, and yes, I usually use a bigger one. Can’t really get much done if I can’t maneuver down the tracks.”

Robin followed him out the door, his wheels bumping over the door stop. “...tracks?”

“I’m a dismantler. You come to the southern states and you don’t know about the Franky House dismantlers?”

At her blank look he tried again, in slow Georgian. “I run a unit. It takes down train-tracks. Helps the government.”

“I can understand sentences. Even English ones, like what you were teaching those idiots back in the bar.” 

He brought her back out of her ire with a blast of cold air as they walked outside and a whining protest in defense of the bar.

“Hey! Some of those ‘idiots’ are my crew. Now, are gonna head back to my place, or are we going to freeze our asses off while you badger me with questions?”

The man played the buffoon very well, apparently oblivious to the danger he was opening himself to, but something in his description made her wary. Dismantlers might be useful if a project went wrong, but the Soviet Union built to last, making men like him a somewhat unnecessary commodity. And if he supported a crew anything like the large, boisterous ‘family’ back in the bar, the Franky House would need more work than just dismantling unused train-tracks.

The concern solidified when she saw where he was taking her. Away from the light of the bar, bumping along now uneven streets, he lead her to the warehouse district. “Dismantlers” might not have enough work, but there were other businesses that had a never ending supply of customers. 

Black-market traders. Even Robin had used them on occasion, though only with Aoi Kiji’s express approval posted directly into her file and with every purchase rigorously recorded. There were some things one simply could not get through normal means. Crocodile had been one of these traders, and there was a "Joker" most of the other Oligarchs had purchased supplies through.

Franky was nothing like them, she realized as he showed her around his warehouse. Iron rails were stacked high to the ceiling, tys and nails in heavy boxes below them. Gutted propellers and even a full airplane engine hung from rafters. This really did look like a scrounging operation, and if there was a little else hidden beneath some hollow floor-tiles, it was probably with the tacit approval of the city leaders.

While the warehouse was huge, the Franky House operation was not. One didn’t make the kind of money the oligarchs played with by bringing in rusty iron and smuggled foodstuffs. But that didn’t seem to bother Franky, as he rolled around the warehouse, proudly showing his supplies and talking nonstop about his “brothers and sisters”. And even if he had made good money, Robin was beginning to suspect that Franky was the sort to waste it all on the moment, rather than saving it or ‘donating’ it to the party like a good communist.

Her suspicions were confirmed when he lead her down a corridor and into an abandoned train station. It was little more than a platform abutting the warehouse, but the train that was attached to it was insane. A little sun and moon hung from the brightly colored engine, and three of the five cars looked as if they had been changed into efficient sleeping cars. The other was obviously a mess hall of some kind, and the caboose an office.

The heat coming from the cars indicated where most of Franky’s funds went. The cars were warm to the touch, and there was the smell of baking bread from the mess. His “siblings” slept and ate as well as he could afford, a fact he confirmed by talking at length about how bloody awful he was at budgeting, but that it was okay because “they had a SUPER job coming up” that was paying the bills for once.

Robin tucked that fact away, just as she had all the rest, struggling to keep herself from liking the wild man. Especially when he man-handled the upgraded wheel-chair from his compartment in the engine car and asked her to help him into it without a single thought of the idiotic machismo that so many of her colleagues favored. 

He was just as heavy as she had expected, but only really needed her to help get the foot pads out of the way so he could rearrange himself. Honestly, she suspected he asked for her help primarily to put her at ease, since it was clear he viewed the machines as an extension of his self and was as comfortable wearing them as a pair of pants.

...maybe more so, as she noticed him fiddling with the hems and seams as he reorganized himself, clearly uncomfortable with the fabric. Given the fact that he was wearing a thin work shirt beneath his coat, she suspected he preferred lesser cloths to more.

But then he astounded her, as with nary a thought he shoved his first chair back into its compartment and levitated himself up into the conductor’s car. Just one lever-push, then the machine thrust itself up with some kind of hydraulic lever system. Franky swung through the door, with ease, no indication of the strength it must have taken to hold the heavy wheelchair aloft for just long enough for the wheels to retract. He wasn’t even sweating when it was through, and the whole motion was so quick she could have sworn she was hallucinating, and carried out with such finesse that he must have practiced it for years. 

He turned, reached a hand down to her, and grinned.

“C’mon, Miss Robin, I’ve still got more to tell you about how _suuuuper_ we are.”


	3. Chapter 3

Franky drove her home, though ‘drove’ would be a simplification. The larger chair was motorized and with the right levers pulled could get up to 20 kilometers per hour - a fact which Franky proudly yelled back at her as she stood on the running board, clinging to his broad back, eyes hidden in offered goggles and trying not to shriek as he skirted around pedestrians and other vehicles.

Before then he’d brought her dinner from the mess car, good, solid soviet cooking with a cup of tea she knew must be contraband. She’d breathed in the steam, legs tucked under her, while he gestured around his train-car office. He seemed to never stop talking, always happy to answer her questions straight out and boast about the wonders of himself, his crew, and the work they did. Once he even pulled out a guitar and serenaded her as an example of how “super” his life was. She had found herself laughing against her will, and it was difficult to keep up the suspicion that had become second nature in the face of a guitar wielding maniac. 

He had a lot of pride, for a paraplegic dismantler, but Robin found herself admiring it. Life was hard in the USSR, especially if one didn’t have a place, but Franky had carved out a space for himself and the degenerates he called family.

Five hours later, sitting in her tiny room, Robin struggled to put her experiences into words. 

She stared at her typewriter, going over the code in her head, coming up with blanks. How did one describe a man like Franky? How could she put into words how against all regulations he was, while still managing to indicate that he seemed too stupid to be a spy and too obvious to be a plant? He seemed harmless, but Ao Kiji would never believe it, and likely write back demanding she remember his training or suffer the consequences.

As a result, she wrote carefully, removing any trace of the affection she felt from her report, only giving the bare facts. The [[KGB]] didn’t need her guesses or feelings, they wanted her data and her keen eyes. Nothing else mattered to them, and as such mattered less to her.

But when she awoke the next morning there was a note under her door, with Ao Kiji’s mark and written in Ao Kiji’s code, warning - no demanding - that she stay away from the Franky House. __

_Robin,_

_Thank you for bringing this man to our attention. As you say, it is strange that we have as of yet received no reports of him, despite his obvious deviancy. From our files here I was able to ascertain that the Franky House is a legitimate business and is well known throughout the region. As to whether or not he has black-market connections, no records could be found, nor any unusual materials appearing in Georgian raids._

_However, despite this anomaly, you are to be immediately reassigned to the mining town of Enies. My superiors gave me no reason for this assignment, nor what you are expected to do once you reach there. It was my distinct impression that you are to refrain from any further observation of subject Franky. Your tickets will arrive tomorrow evening, and the train will leave two hours later._

_Good Luck  
_  
The letter dripped subtext. If Ao Kiji had been worried for her before, now he was both worried and angry. Franky was exactly the sort he would have sent her to investigate, and the lack of information on the man was a red flag for him just as much for her. He must have been ordered to end the investigation, either because Franky was important to someone else...or because they needed her on a mission Ao Kiji didn’t approve of.

Either way, she was heading straight into trouble, no matter what course of action she took.

Robin sighed, head aching, and burnt the missive in her lamp. She had little choice in the matter. She would follow her orders to the letter, or she would die just as her mother had. A warning was better than nothing. 

And it meant she had the rest of her day free to do whatever she wished. Enough time to do some research of her own. There were supposedly some wonderful ruins near by…

\--------------------------------   
_  
“Let me get this straight. You lost_ 2 million _American dollars.”_

_“I was ambushed. Couldn’t get to my guns. These Russian freaks snuck up on me.”_

_“Know their names?”_

_“Said they were from Franky.”_

_“Damn.”_

_“Captain...they said something else. Said he was taking it as payment.”_

_“Payment for what?”  
_  
\------------------------------------ 

Robin mentally went over the note from Ao Kiji. 3 pm her tickets were to arrive. At five, the only train to Enies for a week would leave.

It was now four, and there had been no hint of her tickets. Nor could she buy them, as the ticket master had informed her that the train was fully booked for only special guests, implying with his upturned nose that she would never be considered within that category.

She had returned to the painfully cold chairs in the terminal, evaluating her options.

There was a stink about the situation. Should she fail to reach Enies all parts of her letter would be called into question. Not reporting for duty, as well as potentially remaining in contact with Franky. The train was likely going to be filled with government workers, but no one to vouch for her. If she attempted to board she would be at best kicked off, at worse killed. If she remained in the city for a full week her funds would quickly run out and her cover might be ‘accidentally’ blown.

In other words, she was trapped. And all over a couple of tickets! Ao Kiji wasn’t the sort to fail her on such a simple task, especially when he had indicated he would personally see to it - a fact she had thought strange at the time, but now suspected was his suspicion steering him correctly. 

After all, this had all the marks of someone trying to burn her.

And oh there were many in the KGB who would want that. For most she was seen as a threat or a ticking time bomb, rather than the damned good worker Ao Kiji claimed she was. No matter how many shitty assignments she took, no matter how many bad situations she turned to her advantage, there was not a single one of her fellows that would defend her should she need it. Not even Ao Kiji would extend a hand if it meant risking his superior’s ire.

Curled up on the terminal bench, she weighed her options.

“Hey! A _suuuuuuper_ lady like you shouldn’t be looking so sad!”

And speak of the devil. Franky motored up to her, today wearing a chair half way between the two she’d seen him wear last night. This one was hung with thick chains and had a strange folded up contraption on the back. 

She considered, and realized that speaking to him could hardly harm her more.

“Franky. I seem to be in a bit of a predicament. You wouldn’t by any chance know of any shipments going to Enies, would you?”

He regarded her for a long moment, then his face lit up. “Hah. You’ve come to the right man! We’re heading up there later tonight. Got a big job and they’ve been calling up work crews from all over. You’re welcome to catch a ride.”

Robin thought for a moment. Interacting with Franky was dangerous, for reasons she didn’t understand but suspected involved politics at the highest level. On the other hand, failing to find a way to Enies would likely get her burned if not killed. So the options were disobey one portion of her orders...or disobey both. She’d choose the former.

“Thank you, Franky, that would be very helpful. Is there any way I can repay you?”

There. Just a hint of breathy anticipation, which would leave him thinking of the cheapest, easiest way for her to discharge her debt, and get her out of any dangerous attachments…

But the suggestion seemed to go right over his head.

“I’m sure I can think of something. But don’t worry about it. Frankys hate debts. I ain’t gonna hold you to it.”

Robin would have snorted if she hadn’t been gathering her things. Not holding debts? What idiots would gain from those kinds of ideals?

\------------------------------   
__  
“I wish Robin was still here. She’d know how to get us into Russia.”

_“Well, Robin’s not here. That’s kind of the whole problem, isn’t it? And we can’t buy her back.”_

_“(sniff) Oh, I don’t know how I’ll ever survive without my beautiful (sniff) perfect (sob) Robin.”_

_“Shut up. I still don’t see why we have to go after her. She’s a traitor and we don’t have a single land vehicle.”_

_“Come on, guys, don’t give up hope! We’ll get her back, I promise!”_


End file.
